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Haven’t done one of these in a while, so here you go. An excerpt from late in the book: one of Grace’s past lives, fourteen-year-old Sophie, is treated for Dementia Praecox–or what we now call Schizophrenia–in 1902 France. But is she really ill?

“Go away. Please go away.” I stare at the ceiling, an unwitting audience to the spirits that flock to me now. I wipe a stray tear of frustration that races down my cheek toward my hairline as I lay in bed. My hands are mercifully free, as I’m supervised by the good Doctor for the moment.

“Sophie,” says Dr. Poireier, “do you speak to someone else now?”

It is difficult at these times to listen when I’m being spoken to. The voices of the living are often drowned out by those of the dead. The living speak to hear themselves, I have come to believe. The dead are just desperate to be heard.

I give up, and call for Noel.

“This Noel, tell me…” the Doctor’s words blend into the spirits’ din, and I wait for the needle to come.